chrisobee

http://news.uk.msn.com/odd-news/article.aspx?cp-documentid=149331024

Attention seeking I'd say with a very poor taste in "friends" TBH

Yes, thanks though I'm not hard to find with my unusual name !

Yes, I was a winger in my younger days which was many moons ago. At the age of 13 I was a half decent player, a regular in my school team which won the league. However, a different teacher took over the following season and indeed he tried to get me to play a more disciplined role instead of doing what I was good at which was using my pace to get to the byline and crossing. After 2 games I was left out and never played for him again. I was lucky enough to be good enough at 13/14 to play in an Under 16 Sunday league team where I was indeed able to play as an out and out winger. So the point is one I can certainly relate to and agree with. In my view of course you coach a player to improve his all round game but not at the expense of what they are good at. I don't think it is coincidence that wingers such as Paine, Sydenham and Jenkins are almost a dying breed given how seriously football is taken even when kids are so young and of course you get clubs signing up players at silly ages.

I have just drafted this letter to Curry's in respect of a PC I bought in June. I think the letter covers the main points but before I send it any suggestions/advice are welcome. This is by many a mile my worst ever experience when purchasing anything let alone something costing over £600. Thanks. Dear Sir/Madam, I refer to the purchase made from you as below and the attached receipt. It is fair to say that I am entirely dissatisfied both with the quality of the product and also the very poor ( and at times rude) Customer Service I have received. I will give a brief summary of events for the sake of clarity albeit in a few cases I cannot be sure of the exact dates. 4th June 2009 Order placed online for Packard Bell PC, total cost £ 667.34 7th June 2009 Order delivered and I set up the PC though had to use an old mouse AND keyboard as those provided were difficult to connect. Never the less the PC was working fine so I was at that point happy with my purchase 30th June 2009 By this time I was already experiencing problems, in particular I often found myself facing a white screen at log on. July 2009 I made numerous phone calls both to your Customer Services and Technical support. I'm not sure how much time, money and effort I spent trying to resolve the problems with my PC but it certainly ran into hours. I would say that certain members of your staff were absolutely appalling in their attitude and I was asked to connect, disconnect, re connect certain parts of my PC so many times it was absurd and especially when it was obvious even to a non PC expert like myself that the PC could not be fixed without an engineer looking at it and even then the problems were so bad I suspect the PC is/was beyond repair. July 2009 After numerous phone calls and with the problem unresolved I was advised by one of your Technical Support team to take the PC into my local Currys. Though I don't drive and it's well over a mile to the nearest Currys I did this by putting my PC into my luggage trolley and actually wheeling it there. However, I was no sooner at the store than I was told by the manager that "they did not deal with this kind of issue!" . As it happened one member of staff did take a look and ran several tests to no avail and then accused me of damaging the ports for the Mouse and the Keyboard ! That is truly unbelievable as he would have no idea what the PC was like when I received it. I'm sure I don't need to tell you the law relating to faulty goods but it is clear that : "If it's in the first six months, and it's not because of fair wear and tear, accidental damage or misuse, then the retailer must still repair or replace the item. If he demurs, he has to prove the item wasn't faulty in the first place, or that it couldn't be expected to last that long" Anyway I was able finally to book an appointment for an Engineer to visit by phoning from the store. August 17th An engineer did call but as he was unable to park within 5 minutes walk he told me he was unable to stay and all he could do was hand me 2 recovery disks. Fair to say there is a car park within 5 minutes, I was even willing to pay the parking fee but even that was not acceptable. The engineer actually admitted he and his colleagues often encountered problems with your Customer Service and he even suggested that most of the time they were "probably asleep!" However, as I expected the recovery disks have proved worthless and having paid £667.34 for a new PC over 2 months ago I am still having to use my old one. I feel not only have I just thrown money down the drain but perhaps even worse been made to feel that it is all my fault and the hours I have wasted trying to resolve this without success simply ridiculous. I think it is totally reasonable to say that having been sold faulty goods the efforts I have had to make to try to resolve the problem are totally unacceptable as indeed is much of the Customer Service I have received. It's stating the obvious to say that £667 plus a lot more spent on phone calls etc is a lot of money to most people including myself. However, in terms of your group of companies it is hardly a drop in the ocean. I have been more than patient but now I want this resolved and I want it resolved now. Either you replace the PC within the next 10 days or preferably just refund my money as I think the stress you have caused is far beyond what anyone should endure. Yours faithfully, Chris O'Bee Order Confirmation Dear Mr O'bee, We are pleased to confirm your order. It has been processed as detailed below:- Payment method: Credit/Debit Card Delivery of the following product/s Quantity Code Description 1 153193 PAYG 601-700 MONTHLY 1 177581 DELIVERY SERVICE S MALL 1 752419 PACKARD BL IXTMX6618 Q8200 1 305257 SYMANTEC N360 V3 DVD Currys order number: C002835257 Order placed on: 04/06/2009 02:26:33 These items will be delivered: 2-3 working days, Mon-Fri 9am-5pm Your courier will be DHL Your parcel number(s) JJD0002267237726118 Items delivered by DHL or DPD can be tracked online. For DHL go to http://track.dhl.co.uk/tracking/ . Under "Next Day" Select "by Ident Code" and enter the parcel number under the "From Ident Code" field For DPD go to http://www.dpd.co.uk/tracking and enter the above parcel number in the "Parcel Number" field Please note that there is normally a short delay before the details become available on the courier's tracking system and should be delivered the next working day from then. (if no parcel number is shown above, your order has been sent by Royal Mail.) The documentation for the Coverplan you have ordered will be posted to you separately. This is a complete after-sales service agreement that will mean you can get many years peace of mind and full support on your purchase. If you would like more information about the benefits of Coverplan, please call on 0844 561 4000 or email CurrysWebSales@currys.co.uk.

As will be evident from my posts on several other threads this pretty much echoes my thoughts. Too many people expect miracles, I'll settle for a job well done over a period of 6-9 months, so far I've not been disappointed.

Once again a perfectly good thread becomes a slanging match, why ? I think the original post was perfectly reasonable and it's perfectly reasonable for someone to disagree as long as it is done in the right manner. My own view of this board generally is that there is far too much in fighting and it reaches the point where you really cannot be bothered to read most of what is written. There are certainly cliques on here that are easily identifiable and as a result many main board threads become something you'd expect to find on TMS. Really though it's not that hard to be polite even if you disagree with someone and it's invariably not the point that causes the problem but the way it is expressed. Resorting to personal insults ( and I'm not referring to anyone specifically ) is clearly not acceptable as any reasonable person would I'm sure agree.

Please don't tell me it has taken you 3 years to realise that !

Which just proves that there really are lies, damned lies and statistics ! Not sure when we played a Universe XI though to be honest !

Totally agree, pointless sarcasm which gives the impression of actually enjoying our position. We are getting better ( not difficult I know) but we are still rebuilding from the shambles left behind by other people who I shall not even bother to name. In terms of Pardew I'd say he has done extremely well in the transfer market and anyone who thinks it is easy to come to a club and turn things around in 6 weeks knows nothing about football. Hell, Lawrie Mac managed to get us relegated after taking over from Ted Bates and look what happened over the next few years, I have no doubt many on here would have been calling for his head even before the end of 1973/74 . History tells us that changing everything from personnel, confidence ( the club HAS had a losing mentality, to suggest otherwise is foolish) etc does not happen over night. I would agree that the team lacks width and that is something which needs to be addressed but if you sign a player like Lambert without realising he needs to be given a good supply of crosses in order to produce his best then that would be worrying but really who do we have at the club who is a decent winger ? The answer I suggest is nobody and I'm sure Pardew knows that but unfortunately we don't have the likes of Paine and Sydenham and dare I suggest that Nathan Dyer would have been a very good player at this level. Stupid of Pardew to sell him ( and Surman come to that ) but oh of course he wasn't even here at the time but I guess it's still his fault. Really I despair at the reaction of certain people, everyone is entitled to an opinion, unfortunately some are just plain daft.

True enough and in reality Norwich losing to Sunderland is no surprise of course especially when they have a very good striker called Kenwyne Jones !

Well they are playing the mighty Sunderland !

As I said on the tips thread : Oh what a bugger, just realised I think RUK is only available on free view at certain times ( till 4pm today I think). Is that a general thing now Setanta are no more Don't really want to fork out even more money, at least CH4 have got the first 4 races. ( York meeting last week ) According to the RUK site its £20 pm, I used to get Setanta for £9.99 inc. RUK, what a rip off.

Should be a golden thread !!

Even an eternal optimist like me really did not think we would win before the match but in a strange way I was glad we were 8 down on the 1st day as the pitch was very dodgy indeed. That gave me hope we might just pull it off and after day 1 a result was almost inevitable.The decision not to play Hauritz was well and truly an error on the part of Australia. Anyway what is the point of playing at home if you don't take advantage of it !

Just as well they didn't have the last test match up North ! Hants were cruising anyway, Lumb 57 off 44 balls.

What a thrilling match and a great series, that's what I call REAL cricket ! Great stuff England but credit to the Aussies and Ponting for making us sweat and genuine sportmanship at the end.

They have restarted, 87/1 off 11. 56 needed off 10 overs.

Australia were 70 odd for 0 in the 1st innings and only managed 160. Whilst I'm sure they'll show more resolve this time round I'll be surprised if they manage above 300.The pitch will get even worse and especially with the very warm weather forecast for today. If by some miracle they did get the runs required I'd rate it as the finest achievement by a team chasing a total I have ever seen. However, it simply isn't going to happen !

The fact that the Aussies conveniently seem to overlook is that not playing a front line spinner was an horrendous mistake, no team should ever go in to a Test match and have to rely on part time spin. As for the pitch well if I were the groundsman I wouldn't be looking to produce a belter of a pitch in a game which England needed to win. I just hope we ram home our advantage today and listen to even more whingeing !

Tomorrow is only day 3 so unless weather intervenes then the number of overs left is going to be around 270 and not the 180 I think you are working on.

Completely different situation and no relevance at all to this match other than it shows what we already know which is take nothing for granted. Hence I'm really hoping and optimistic we can get past the Aussies 1st innings score and hopefully they'll need to be chasing around 350. At the way the game is at present I don't think anyone would prefer to be in their position and I'm very confident we'll win.

A lead of 230 on this pitch with 7 wickets in hand is a position I would have gladly have taken this morning. The pitch simply is not going to get any better though I'd be hoping we can get up to 160+ and leave Australia needing the highest score of the match to win. Bookies odds are England 1/3, Aussies 7/2, Draw 20/1.

All out for 407 right on close of play though they were 297-8 at one point. 4 for Tahir and Griffiths, 1 each for Cork and Ervine. Still a lead of 247, I would hope and expect we would enforce the follow on.